Vanity Fair star Olivia Cooke admits she did not know new ITV series was based on a novel

Natasha Sporn23 August 2018

Olivia Cooke has admitted she did not know that Vanity Fair was a novel when she signed up to play its lead Becky Sharp.

The British actress, 24, told the Standard she said yes to the role because she liked the “naughty anti-heroine” and had never played a flawed character before.

Vanity Fair is an 1848 satirical novel by William Thackeray which follows Becky’s attempts to rise to the top of society during and after the Napoleonic Wars.

Cooke, who made her breakthrough in Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi film Ready Player One, laughed: “I didn’t know it was a novel and then I read the script and found out … and then read the novel!”

On set: Olivia Cooke as Becky Sharp and Tom Bateman as Rawdon Crawley
ITV

Of her character, she said: “Becky’s a bit of an anti-heroine. She is conniving, mischievous, she’s really naughty, she is pining for status and celebrity which is not exactly a nice trait.

“I liked that she’s constantly playing with this idea of what a woman at that time should be. She’s not pure and she’s not honest.”

ITV Vanity Fair - in pictures

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The book has been adapted for the big and small screen several times, with Reese Witherspoon taking on the role of Becky in a 2004 film.

Cooke believes it will continue to be adapted, because it “speaks to the youth of whatever time”.

“It could be made 50 years from now and there will still be this human trait of striving for wealth and notoriety and these are all really relatable traits we all have deep inside us,” she said.

Cooke stars alongside Jekyll and Hyde actor Tom Bateman in the upcoming drama, who plays Rawdon Crawley.

Bateman admitted that he didn’t feel a huge pressure for the part because “people don’t have the same affinity [with Rawdon] as they do with Becky” but had been excited to take on the role of the changing character.

He told us: “He starts off as this quite self-centred, egotistical, out for himself guy and he just wants money and a good time, not do too much work and gamble and have a good time.

“When he first meets Becky, he just wants a bit of fun and then all these things happen that test what he wants.”

Recalling filming with children on set, Bateman spoke of their “adorable” baby who “only stayed quiet while grabbing his double chins”.

But Bateman says that the children add an “innocence” to the gritty period drama because they are “caught in the middle of political and social games”.

The actor explained: “They are innocent and they don’t know what’s going on and there’s a line where he just says ‘I just want mummy to sing to me’. And it makes you look at your character differently.”

Vanity Fair begins on Sunday 2 September at 9pm on ITV, continuing Monday 3 before a weekly Sunday slot.

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